To be honest, I do not own a television so I do not really know how many shows there are. However, I do notice that these shows to seem to clog up the news with their shenanigans rather more than I would like. It irritates me when even the normal news updates contain discussion on the latest goings-on of a show I suspect no one really cares about. To be honest, I do not even see the attraction of watching such shows. They are clearly scripted and finely-tuned by the producers to make exactly what they want: it is the most unreal television you can find! On top of that, it is then "revealed" in newspapers and so on that certain events were "staged" or "shot more than once". Of course they were! It is not as if the people who make these shows are going to allow actual reality to get in the way of their viewer ratings. In my opinion, even if there are not too many reality shows around, they do seem to be receiving far more attention than they should from the media. However, I suspect that the reason for this is, of course, money. These shows are central to advertisers so it is important to keep the shows "in the spotlight".